Collagist Belisle branches out into abstract images

Updated 11:54 pm, Monday, December 10, 2012

San Antonio artist Lyn Belisle’s exhibition, “30 Shades of Twilight,” is her first abstract art show.

San Antonio artist Lyn Belisle’s exhibition, “30 Shades of Twilight,” is her first abstract art show.

Photo: Steve Bennett, San Antonio Express-News

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Strong brush strokes and the colors of the sunset are evident in one of Lyn Belisle’s new works.

Strong brush strokes and the colors of the sunset are evident in one of Lyn Belisle’s new works.

Photo: Photo By Steve Bennett

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"This is my first abstract show I've ever done," said San Antonio artist Lyn Belisle, who is showing 30 small abstract paintings in a series called "30 Shades of Twilight" at La Vida Gallery.

"This is my first abstract show I've ever done," said San Antonio artist Lyn Belisle, who is showing 30 small abstract paintings in a series called "30 Shades of Twilight" at La Vida Gallery.

Photo: Photo By Steve Bennett

Collagist Belisle branches out into abstract images

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Best known for her intricate collage work — she calls herself a “hunter-gatherer” of images — Lyn Belisle has gone abstract (in a good way) for her new show at La Vida Gallery in Southtown.

“This is the first abstract show I've ever done,” says the artist, who has been exhibiting her work locally since 1979.

Titled “30 Shades of Twilight” — and Belisle admits with a smile that she “stole shamelessly from pop culture” for the name of the series — the exhibition features 30 small, 10-inch-by-10-inch paintings inspired by the colors of twilight: golds and reds and magentas playing off of bluish gray backgrounds. Some have gold, copper and silver leaf. Many seem to have the illusion of a horizon line dominated by fiery cloud formations. Several have circles in them, as if the moon is just beginning to show its face. The brushstrokes are forceful, and the paintings seem to show an Asian influence, or perhaps it's Mexican.

“I think of them as snapshots of the sky,” Belisle says.

As the artist tells it, she was driving on Loop 410 near the airport when she was “dazzled” by the colors of the sky.

“It was really a coalescing of all the colors of the day,” she said. “Then I got a little sad and started thinking that this was the prettiest time of the day. I've been a bit sentimental this year because my oldest grandson is going off to college. So, basically, these paintings are about the perception and the passing of time.”

They also are about change — the changing of the sky and the physical landscape, the change that occurs every day of our lives.

“They're visual metaphors for the endings of our days and of our journey,” she said.

Belisle had been searching for inspiration to point her in the direction of abstraction.

“It's a progression any artist has: you start drawing things and gradually you discard the images and begin painting ideas,” says Belisle, who teaches computer graphics at Trinity University.

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This summer, Belisle studied in Taos, N.M., with Gwen Fox, an artist who teaches design and color workshops, plus classes about how to enhance artistic creativity.

“She got me extended away from using pictures in my work,” Belisle said of Fox. “She got me thinking about abstracts that glow. I learned a lot about the language of color from her.”

Belisle produced all 30 “Twilight” paintings over the course of the last couple of months.

“I took the workshop in July, it percolated over August, and then when school started again I told everyone at work what I was going to do, so then I had to do it,” Belisle says with a laugh. “My collage work is where I'm safe and comfortable, but this was exciting, like working without a safety net.”

She stopped at 30 because that's roughly the number of days in a month. She included a small number in each painting, a reference to digital numbering on some photo prints from a teacher who teaches, among other programs, Photoshop.

“But I just think numbers are the coolest,” she said. “I've always loved and been influenced by Jasper Johns and Larry Rivers, and they have used a lot of numbers in their work.”